OK. One more try, this time on the other side. :) I’m still not convinced White resigning is best here. How about 20. E2F2F1 ? If Black tries to push through with 21. G2, say, then White has 22. H2H1G1 and he seems OK. If Black pushes all the way through with 21. H3G2G1 then the original move proposed for the top (G8G9F9) now works since there is no longer a ladder. Is this right? Thanks for all your patience!

You probably see things a little bit too static, it’s not like hex or TwixT. Black could play 23. F8G7H9 and like this bring the piece now on F8 to the line more to the right next move and white probably is in trouble. This kind of movement can be repeated then next move if you have enough space, everytime bringing a piece from the left to the right chain and white only can bring additional pieces to the fight by moving them long distances, which takes too much time.

Yes, I’m pretty sure black wins if he makes no mistake. But there is no ‘right’ answer to the question if it was time to resign or not. There was a discussion about that in the chess forum recently and people had very different views.

At the risk of beating this to death, I conclude the following: (1) If a strong Slither player says “I'm pretty sure black wins if he makes no mistakes” I think that means White resigned prematurely. (2) Much more to the point, the original post was about learning more about Slither and the lesson I think I learned here is that there really is no obvious win for Black in this position.

Okay there is a mistake in both examples, if you find it you understood the ladders... If O plays the right move black won’t connect to the other chain in both cases... however X is still winning, no matter what O does.

Richard L., a draw is impossible if Slither is played according to the official rules wherein a player is forced to pass in the event that they do not have a legal move. In any one of these cases the opponent will still have a move available. Unfortunately Slither was not implemented here with this amendment, however even without this rule the likelihood of a position in which any player will lack a legal move seems remote enough to me not to worry about. Although I have appealed to Richard Malaschitz about implementing this rule. But I can say with absolute certainty given any position either one player or the other will have a legal move.